Contracts and grants - calls for proposals

Grants are direct financial contributions by way of donation, from the budget of the European Union in order to finance any of the following:

an action intended to help achieve an EU policy objective (grant for action)

the functioning of a body which pursues an aim of general European Union interest or has an objective forming part of, and supporting an EU policy (operating grant).

In accordance with Article 188 RAP of the Financial Regulation, Directorate-General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs publishes the work programme under the responsibility of the DG indicating the grants to be awarded on the budget of the coming year.

Calls for proposals will be published individually on this website or on the website of the executive agencies responsible (REA, EASME). Applications will be possible only after publication of the individual call, within the deadline indicated for that specific call. The conditions for application and the template documents to be used are indicated for each individual call.

As a rule, applications for DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs grants are to be submitted electronically. The necessary information to how to submit an application is indicated in the Guide for Applicants (597 kB) attached to each call.

The European Union has the task to promote equality between women and men and shall aim in all its activities to eliminate gender inequality (articles 8 of the Treaty). In this context, women are particularly encouraged to either submit proposals or to be involved in their submission.

2016 Grant Work Programme

Internal market for goods and sectorial policies

The aim of this activity is to manage and develop the internal market in goods. To maintain its role as a motor for European growth and meet the expectations set out in the ‘Europe 2020’ Strategy, this market must adapt to the changes in our society: globalisation, e-commerce, new technologies, the euro and enlargement.

Three main tasks have to be accomplished, while bearing in mind the increasingly international agenda underpinning the internal market: managing the current acquis, improving the legislation in force through policy development, and preparing the internal market to face new challenges.

Horizon 2020

Horizon 2020 is the EU funding programme for research and innovation running from 2014 to 2020 with a €80 billion budget.

The Horizon 2020 Work Programme overall comprises 18 sections, which set out the funding opportunities under the different parts of the programme. Each part is self-contained, and describes the overall objectives, the respective calls, and the topics within each call. Each topic describes the specific challenge to be addressed, the scope of the activities to be carried out, and the expected impacts to be achieved.

DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs will be mainly responsible of the implementation of the following sections:

Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies

Innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises

Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials

Secure societies – Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Galileo

The Galileo programme is Europe's initiative for a state-of-the-art global satellite navigation system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. The fully deployed system will consist of 30 satellites and the associated ground infrastructure. Galileo will be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems.

Copernicus

Copernicus, previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), is the European Programme for the establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation.

Copernicus will ensure the regular observation and monitoring of Earth sub-systems, the atmosphere, oceans, and continental surfaces, and will provide reliable, validated and guaranteed information in support of a broad range of environmental and security applications and decisions.